stuffy:[www.11points.com image 266x320]Odd no one ever complained about the "body image" these sent to boys.

There are definitely body image issues for boys growing up. And to some extent I think it not only impresses itself on young boys but also girls. Many of them expect boys to have a six pack and defined pecs.. I'm not saying across the board.. some girls also just accept that men are getting fat and getting bellies.. but if you don't date that kind of girl.. a lot of girls do have that unrealistic expectation. On the other hand, considering the statistics, if you are in shape and not fat you represent a minority in the US and your numbers apparently get smaller every day... so you should have a fark ton of girl's numbers...

MythDragon:If all you have to do is not eat to look like Barbie, what in God's name do you have to do to look like this?: [upload.wikimedia.org image 300x214] I imagine it requires a trip to some German surgeon's house way out in the middle of nowhere.

Slumber Party Barbie from 1965 promoted weight loss to young girls, by way of a diet book called 'How To Lose Weight'. There was only one instruction, and that was, 'Don't Eat!'

Yeah, yeah, anorexia and all that, BUT

1. I've been reading about nutrition, exercise, and weight loss advice as a layperson for over a decade, and I really can't improve on this advice without making it a whole lot more complicated. There's always a market for more complicated stories, but that's commerce for you.

2. I'm no longer weird in thinking this way. There was even an article on fasting for weight loss in Harper's this year: http://harpers.org/archive/2012/03/starving-your-way-to-vigor/

3. Anorexia is caused by mental illness. Mental illness takes on different forms according to the social context, but mental illness is not caused by insecurity, which everyone feels, or by unreachable social ideals, which are as universal as the human ability to project human achievement to inhuman levels in our imagination.

4. (pain and suffering caused by insufficient attention to Slumber Party Barbie's advice) / (pain and suffering caused by following Slumber Party Barbie's advice) ~= a gazillion jillion brazillion

I am sitting here enjoying my hot chicken wings and pepperoni pizza with dill pickle chips baked on top. For dessert, See's Bordeaux Crisps. A lot of them.Fark you knuckleheads. I LOVE to sit on the sofa and eat bon bons.YOU go hungry for a change.

Bronzemom:WhippingBoy: Here's your problem:- clothes are way to tight and revealing- updating her Facebook while lounging on the the bed- bucket of food beside her- empty soda cans- cat

And this is a problem, why?

The original poster posted it as a joke. The problem is that it was so mind-numbingly accurate with respect to today's modern Fat Chicks, that no one got the joke (or, if they did, it filled them with a profound sense of sadness and disgust instead of mirth or joy).

Basically, male body image problems are on the rise, and studies have shown that typical action figures are getting increasingly unrealistic, and yeah, boys (and men) are starting to get body image problems too (40% of body image issues are male actually), from the media showing men with ripped washboard abs and bulked out muscles and physiques which are just as impractical to obtain for a man as some supermodel body is for a woman.

Yeah, He Man was always an extreme case, but he was also supposed to be supernaturally strong and the strongest man in the universe. IIRC, He Man was shoehorned into the DC Comics continuity (pre-Crisis) and in a crossover, he was stronger than Superman.

However, non-supernatural characters have been getting increasingly beefy too. I remember the first release of Star Wars figures in the 1990's, the first in over a decade, had some ludicrously built-up characters, with a bulked-out Luke Skywalker that was sarcastically called "Luke Schwartzenegger" by some fans. Complaints got the powerbuilder build toned down, but the trend goes on.

Here we are 50 years later and most women are fat. They like to call it curvy or BBW or extra, but they are fat. I would guess its got to be 80 percent around my town. At least the ugly guys can get laid.

Silverstaff:Basically, male body image problems are on the rise, and studies have shown that typical action figures are getting increasingly unrealistic, and yeah, boys (and men) are starting to get body image problems too (40% of body image issues are male actually), from the media showing men with ripped washboard abs and bulked out muscles and physiques which are just as impractical to obtain for a man as some supermodel body is for a woman.

The choice is not between obesity and anorexia. The goal for everyone, men and women, should be strength and health. As more people have become overweight or obese, the Western "ideal" for women has become thinner and thinner. As much as some would like to believe it, extreme thinness is not healthy. Obesity causes many health problems, but anorexia has a much higher mortality rate. Women who starve themselves until they are seriously underweight are not healthy. Men who are attracted to anorexics, because they view them as a "status symbol" or because they want a fragile thing they can control, are not making a healthy choice, either. The problem people have with messages like this is not that they are "politically incorrect," but that in today's world people, young girls increasingly, are taking them literally. When the Barbie came out in 1965, there were very few teenagers and younger children starving themselves to death. Now there are 8 million Americans with eating disorders, and the mortality rate is 20% (Link). The book is probably a joke, but our humor can reveal a lot about a society.

Metalithic:The choice is not between obesity and anorexia. The goal for everyone, men and women, should be strength and health.

And we're never going to get there unless we talk to kids about overweight, obesity, and how to control their weight.

Anorexia is a mental illness. You have to be seriously mentally farked up to get there, not least because girls don't actually want to look anorexic. Anorexics look horrible. Anorexics don't want to look anorexic; they think they look fat because they have body dsymorphia. You can't fix anorexia by changing social ideals, because anorexics' brains are always one step ahead of you making them think they look awful. If a tall blond guy thinks he's Jesus Christ, you can't cure him by pointing out that the real Jesus was likely dark-haired and short by modern standards. That's not how mentally illness works.

How mental illness manifests is socially conditioned, for sure, but there are lots of other options for people who messed up enough to be anorexic: cutting, criminal behavior, sexual degradation, drug abuse, suicide, etc. You can't help them by trying to make one option less attractive. They need a different kind of help. Sure, cutting and sexual degradation might not have the mortality rate that anorexia does (by the way, according to your link 20% is the mortality rate for anorexia, NOT for eating disorders) but the method for helping anorexics should not be to hide the issues of overweight and obesity from children so that the mentally ill kids we ignore suffer in some non-lethal way, while overweight children get no encouragement and guidance with weight loss. The goal should be to be straightforward with children about the health risks of overweight, and to provide appropriate psychological treatment for people whose mental illnesses cause them to process that information in pathological ways.

AustinFakir:Metalithic: The choice is not between obesity and anorexia. The goal for everyone, men and women, should be strength and health.

And we're never going to get there unless we talk to kids about overweight, obesity, and how to control their weight.

Anorexia is a mental illness. You have to be seriously mentally farked up to get there, not least because girls don't actually want to look anorexic. Anorexics look horrible. Anorexics don't want to look anorexic; they think they look fat because they have body dsymorphia. You can't fix anorexia by changing social ideals, because anorexics' brains are always one step ahead of you making them think they look awful. If a tall blond guy thinks he's Jesus Christ, you can't cure him by pointing out that the real Jesus was likely dark-haired and short by modern standards. That's not how mentally illness works.

How mental illness manifests is socially conditioned, for sure, but there are lots of other options for people who messed up enough to be anorexic: cutting, criminal behavior, sexual degradation, drug abuse, suicide, etc. You can't help them by trying to make one option less attractive. They need a different kind of help. Sure, cutting and sexual degradation might not have the mortality rate that anorexia does (by the way, according to your link 20% is the mortality rate for anorexia, NOT for eating disorders) but the method for helping anorexics should not be to hide the issues of overweight and obesity from children so that the mentally ill kids we ignore suffer in some non-lethal way, while overweight children get no encouragement and guidance with weight loss. The goal should be to be straightforward with children about the health risks of overweight, and to provide appropriate psychological treatment for people whose mental illnesses cause them to process that information in pathological ways.

What I am saying is that BOTH obesity AND anorexia are bad. I am not saying we should encourage people to be obese, I am saying we do not need to tell girls to stop eating altogether in order to prevent obesity. A HEALTHY diet is preferable, and should be encouraged, not starvation or overeating. I never said "overweight children should get no encouragement and guidance with weight loss."